Not in safety critical applications, nor resource-constrained embedded systems (which this project is targeting).
718 karma · joined July 12, 2015
This is a dead account: I saw the comments here [0], and found some to be so offensive and revolting (and not one mod action taken) I find I no longer want to be associated with such group of people. I wish I could delete my account like on Reddit.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11047384
As far as the proposal writing goes, if a group can't draft a decent proposal, how are they going to produce good documentation? I'm not seeing how grantsmanship presents an unfair bar here.
Frama-C might be worth looking into if the goal is improved reliability, and they'd be able to leverage their existing C skillset.
HR has actually been able to convince me that I should avoid looking at where degrees have been conferred from, at least in initial screenings. I thought that was fairly standard for companies for the past few years. Is your degree from an accredited college/university program? That should be all that matters.
One of the few peer-reviewed articles (with Holmes as a co-author) that uses Theranos technology I see indexed on PubMed is ref. [0]. The results aren't mind blowing, and I have issues with their statistics methodology. This article doesn't really go into the technology, and as a reviewer, I would have given them hell for not even including a cursory description.
There is also a recent commentary in Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine that could be of interest, at ref. [1].
[0] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4091290/
[1] http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/cclm.2015.53.issue-7/cclm-20...
edit: to be specific, this technique would seem to require that you prevent galvanic corrosion through surface coatings, but that doesn't seem to me to be a lasting solution for consumer automotive applications. It would seem like adhesives would be a superior choice since they can insulate the different metals from one another, reducing the need for the surface coating to maintain integrity.
Also interesting that the new governing board has (as far as I can see) zero medical expertise. The medical advisory board is still odd given Theranos' technology: Simons makes sense with a background in hematology, but Helfet doesn't make a lot of sense as an orthopedic trauma surgeon, nor does Frist (a carry-over from the old board) as a cardiothoracic surgeon, nor does Foege (another carry-over) as an epidemiologist. Personally, I'd expect to see perhaps a mix of hematologists and pathologists and endocrinologists, as well as some chemical and biomedical engineers and statisticians on a scientific advisory board.
I'm left scratching my head trying to figure out what sort of due diligence was performed. (edit: the tale of The Emperor's New Clothes does come to mind however)
Given the increased prices in the used car market (arising in part due to better durability and quality), I think I might be able to make an interesting argument for incentives towards purchasing used cars as being better for the environment than incentives for purchasing brand-new electric cars.
I found out about that subtle difference the hard way when I had a problem with a Toyota and expected Toyota to honor their advertisements. Turns out I bought from SET, so Toyota didn't care.
As far as the biotech industry, the funding situation is awful, especially for early companies, and that is a fine reason to avoid this area. Needing to "say what you do and do what you say" doesn't strike me as that much of an obstacle in comparison.
These aren't trivial problems that can be fixed "at the time of, or within a week of, the inspection", as Theranos claims.
Software engineering encompasses the SDLC, which includes a lot more than coding. What about documentation, quality control, or formal methods? There's many roles that I would expect a Ph.D. to be likely to perform well in, more so than someone self-taught. Seems like you're ignoring the bigger picture.
You also said that you're hiring for an engineering position, but you seem to only care about coding. Perhaps I don't know what you mean by engineering, but I'm under the impression that there's a lot more to engineering than any single skill, even by the loose SV definition. How do your Ph.D. applicants do outside of coding?
It's a bit abstract right now. Let's see what happens after the fix is rolled out, the owners need to schedule their appointments for the recalls, deal with (possible) lower fuel economy and performance, and (possible) lower resale values.
Theranos have been very, very squirrelly on details about their testing platform, claiming that they need to keep them as trade secrets in order to maintain competitiveness. Ordinarily, the tests would be independently evaluated in the peer-reviewed literature, and through the literature is how scientists and physicians would assess the value of what Theranos is offering; without peer-reviewed literature, there is little to go on. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, only peer-reviewed literature counts so we don't know.
Theranos has an unusual board of directors for a diagnostic testing company, with surprisingly little medical experience overall. Holmes herself is a college dropout—it's very hard to compete in a highly specialized and technical field without the proper knowledge base and experience, and traditionally that would be with an M.D.+fellowship or Ph.D.+postdoc. In interviews, when things get the least bit technical, Holmes sounds like she doesn't know what she's talking about. Theranos' patents, of which Holmes is a named inventor, are (IMHO) vaguely written. Could Holmes be a diagnostics savant? It's possible, but I don't see credible evidence to suggest this is the case.
The popular media has hyped up the company technology a lot, but in reality microfluidics is not new to the diagnostics arena, and it remains unclear as to what exactly Theranos offers as an advancement on what others are doing. There are also many technical issues to be considered with fingersticks vs. venipuncture samples, and Theranos has never explained how they have overcome those issues other than unsubstantiated assurances that their tests match standard lab tests.
There is also a fundamental problem with the entire hypothesis underlying Theranos: which I very crudely summarize as more tests = better health. That hypothesis is sophomoric and does not hold under the current thinking of evidence-based medicine. One can over test, and it has real, proven consequences towards the health of the patient in terms of invasiveness, costs, and potential risks due to unneeded procedures.
Does Theranos have something unique? It's not impossible. My null hypothesis is that they do not, and until I see something in the peer-reviewed literature suggesting otherwise, I am thinking it's smoke and mirrors.
Edit: All that text and I didn't directly answer your question! Consider my bloviation proof of my credentials as an academic. The earlier WSJ article raised questions about irregularities in regulatory-mandated proficiency testing, a serious allegation. My interpretation of this new, linked article is that there might be something to the allegation.
This is an excellent point. Nevertheless, it's very hard to convince patients, and the public, that more tests do not lead to better outcomes. Think on every time there are revisions to the recommended screening criteria for breast or prostate cancer---it's good evidence-based medicine, but there's an outcry from the public every time.
In addition to your considerations of more testing being invasive and expensive, I'd also add that overtesting can lead to interventions that present a non-minimal risk to the patient and ultimately increase M&M.
Typical PR drivel. It's also a bit rich to complain about scientific inaccuracy, and boast of opening things up to the FDA, when the Theranos testing platform remains to be thoroughly investigated in the peer-reviewed literature.
[0] http://blog.caranddriver.com/elon-take-the-wheel-we-test-tes...
> So, what this product needs in order to work is a fiber that's durable enough to survive being dragged across skin while having very little cladding so as to allow evanescent coupling.
Facial hairs are alleged to be of similar toughness to copper wire when dry (see [0], too lazy to find a better reference). I have a difficult time conceiving how one could drag a multimode fiber across one's face without abrading the fiber to the point of failure.
> Second, they need to pack a high power multi-wavelength laser source and the power reserve to run it into a very tiny handle.
What is even trickier is incorporating a cooling mechanism for the theoretical self-contained, handheld, high-power, battery-powered white laser.
> There's nothing here that looks outright impossible to me. Just very, very tricky.
If it were not self-contained in a handheld unit, then yes, maybe it would be possible. I'm going to say that the their device, based on the proposed renderings, is impossible even if one were to throw Apple's war chest of money at it. There are also the problems of eye safety, skin exposure, heat, and fumes that remain to be overcome.